My Freshmen Year
I thought My Freshmen Year by Rebekah Nathan was very interesting. I enjoyed how she as an older women who was a professor decided to take a step in her students' shoes to experience what they go through on a daily basis. I liked that she focused on language while doing this study because language plays a very important part of everyone's lives. Students may talk to their professors in a different manner than they would to their friends, and I thought it was very cool that she wanted to learn more about that. I liked how it demonstrated the differences between a student's life and a professor's life because there are many ways that they differ. However, this story shows how they can be very similar as well. For example, the part where Nathan gets caught drinking a beer in the lounge and has to go through the same consequences as a student would, and this shows how true this experiment really was. She did not get any special treatment because she was a professor at the school, she got treated as a normal college student who had to go through the same struggles as everyone else. Nathan must have had to struggle with the transition of getting to know her workplace as a school and tat is very similar to the transition we as freshman are going through right at this moment. We are all struggling with balancing work and play and changing into this new environment with much more responsibility. To read about Nathan's struggle was very fascinating because I could personally relate to it so well.
Ethnography
In On Ethnography, it explained what Ethnography is and how it related to language and culture. I personally did not enjoy reading this piece because it was more just facts and examples rather than stories. However, I could relate to some aspects of it. I gained a lot more knowledge on the role that languages and culture play on Ethnography and I did like the part where it said that in Africa people learn over five different languages. I learned that culture plays a big role in who we are and if anyone were going to study anything a human person does culture would have to be included in their research. It made me think about my cultural background and how my family may interact and talk very differently than an Italian family because we are Irish. I did make a connection between these two stories in a way that they both focus on language and how it differs between cultures. The professor in My Freshmen Year had a very different culture and language than her students yet she adjusted. Another connection I made was that the study of language and culture is the main goal of the two stories and each one helps one helps get a better view of what or whom they are studying.
I thought My Freshmen Year by Rebekah Nathan was very interesting. I enjoyed how she as an older women who was a professor decided to take a step in her students' shoes to experience what they go through on a daily basis. I liked that she focused on language while doing this study because language plays a very important part of everyone's lives. Students may talk to their professors in a different manner than they would to their friends, and I thought it was very cool that she wanted to learn more about that. I liked how it demonstrated the differences between a student's life and a professor's life because there are many ways that they differ. However, this story shows how they can be very similar as well. For example, the part where Nathan gets caught drinking a beer in the lounge and has to go through the same consequences as a student would, and this shows how true this experiment really was. She did not get any special treatment because she was a professor at the school, she got treated as a normal college student who had to go through the same struggles as everyone else. Nathan must have had to struggle with the transition of getting to know her workplace as a school and tat is very similar to the transition we as freshman are going through right at this moment. We are all struggling with balancing work and play and changing into this new environment with much more responsibility. To read about Nathan's struggle was very fascinating because I could personally relate to it so well.
Ethnography
In On Ethnography, it explained what Ethnography is and how it related to language and culture. I personally did not enjoy reading this piece because it was more just facts and examples rather than stories. However, I could relate to some aspects of it. I gained a lot more knowledge on the role that languages and culture play on Ethnography and I did like the part where it said that in Africa people learn over five different languages. I learned that culture plays a big role in who we are and if anyone were going to study anything a human person does culture would have to be included in their research. It made me think about my cultural background and how my family may interact and talk very differently than an Italian family because we are Irish. I did make a connection between these two stories in a way that they both focus on language and how it differs between cultures. The professor in My Freshmen Year had a very different culture and language than her students yet she adjusted. Another connection I made was that the study of language and culture is the main goal of the two stories and each one helps one helps get a better view of what or whom they are studying.
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